What is the General Consensus?

[Chrono_Rising]

Clue 1: There is a reason you don't see dark knights in speed kills using TBN every 15 seconds. If it was DPS neutral people would absolutely be looking to maximize this skill usage in order to maximize healer damage. Once again, TBN is powerful mitigation, but it isn't as strong as paladin's kit against reasonably spaced tank busters, and it isn't as powerful as warrior's kit which covers both busters and fluff damage. Dark Knight mitigation shines more in god kefka where there are frequent magical tank busters, but progging with warrior/paladin comp the advantages offered seem really overblown.

Clue 2: The fact that warriors are getting away with only using a subset of their kit doesn't point to the kit being weak.

DRK basically doesnt sacrifice anything, maybe soul eater drain when out of grit stance, thats it. He is absolutely fine tanking, dealing damage and healing himself at the same time. Warrior could do the same, but then he does less dps anyway.

How are dark knights self-healing themselves? Are we talking about the undesirable grit locked soul eater that warrior has access to in both stances? Are we talking about Sole Survivor that can only be used on adds once every 2 minutes if the raid just happens to include them (thankfully more did include adds this tier)? Or are we just talking about plain old abyssal drain which does little inside a raid?

Warrior's might give up a chunk of dps when trying to do something similar, but hey, if you are healing yourself its usually a "do or wipe" situation, and in that context warrior does it better and more effectively than anything dark knight can do. Same can be said for paladin, if the chips are down, spam clemency and pray will get your further than grit and soul eater.

To be fair, I don't agree with the DRKs that they are lacking mitigation. I guess the only place that they are below the other tanks mitigation wise is V3. The problems that DRK has are more related to its DPS and the lack of things like burst windows, utility, anti-knockback tools and enmity generation tools. Also DRK has an overall poor design skillset.

I agree, the only thing I would want to see changed about dark knight mitigation kit is a physical analog to dark mind for leveling purposes and to make the dark knight mitigation more well rounded.

Overall I think the lacking dps is the bigger issue the class faces.

[Shurrikhan]

You are right, DRK is found at some speedruns comps but he is clearly in a worse position than PLD and WAR. He is somewhat like WHM that has only 3 appearances in those comps that I analyzed. However WHM is the healer which has the highest number of parses while DRK has less than 1/3 of the other two tanks:

All Bosses Sigmascape total number of parses:
PLD: 33,209
WAR: 32,073
DRK: 10,951

WHM: 31,006
SCH: 30,576
DRK: 14,502

I know, it is still too soon in this patch to jump to conclusions. But for me it is clear that DRK doesn't have a niche where it excels.

(WHM also has the lowest rDPS and participation in speedkills, however. Parses =/= strength. It's more a measure of perception and of gameplay.)

Honestly, I don't find these numbers all that frightening or signifying of massive imbalance. (Again, I do think DRK needs more, something its own other than damage. I just don't think, to use Aniya's words that the "doom and gloom" is an "absolute truth." It far closer than that.)

Despite the carryover from rigidly "PLD or I quit" PLD mains from ARR to HW, those numbers still seem far more even than Gordias or the like. Parse counts, also, tend to stratify until someone proves what all the trailing class is really capable of and only then snowball back towards balance. Though the instances are fewer, the damage and total mitigation from the DRKs present seems wholly competitive for fights not steeped in raid damage.

Heck, the funny thing is that, say, in Phantom Train, if there were simply two DRKs they could as easily perform many of the tank-specific uptime strats that DV and SiO afford. PLD will remain invaluable in 6 due to HG-Soak + HS spam, but maybe if we saw greater SAM viability we'd be able to avoid WAR even in the few comps that wouldn't necessarily pull the desired rDPS out of a NIN. Perhaps if physical DPS just had a few more noticeable mitigation tools and/or casters more Magic Defense so that a single TBN could cover a particular eHP disadvantage rather than requiring -- due to multiple being thus disadvantaged -- a raidwide shield, then we might see more DRK value in Kefka.

Its value is entirely conditional, and I'd hate to see yet another homogenization forced upon us to deal with a categorical gap when the category (e.g. raidwide mitigation) shouldn't be outright mandatory to begin with. I'd like to see DRK's gameplay and sense of intuitiveness improved upon first, and perhaps even rebalances made towards other DPS's surrounding kits before we even consider, say, a DA-raidwide effect from DM or Shadow Wall making an actual wall, as neat as those would be. We don't need a TankAntiSlashing 2.0 obligatory effect.

[Hierro]

Only tank still eat resource from swapping stance (MP).

This depends on Delirium. Because BS eats GCD you're pushing back SS and SE and losing blood and mp. Using TBN to proc BS is a DPS loss while not in Grit. TBN to proc Delirium is a gain.

Also, Inner Beast isn't remotely similar to Bloodspiller. IB is used as a defensive cooldown, not necessarily for damage.

PLD's oath changes cost MP, and realistically, another GCD more than DRK.

Anyways, It's been shown that using TBN to proc BS is DPS neutral. Honestly, it doesn't matter which GCD bloodspiller replaces in a combo. The end result is that it's the same if you decided to use the MP on TBN for BS, or on DA for SE, SS, or what have you.

Inner Beast is not similar to Bloodspiller. I'm comparing IB to TBN when it comes to native, "on-demand" mitigation. The argument being made is that DRK's mitigation is weak, when in reality none of DRK's cooldowns should be viewed in a vacuum, but instead as "x cooldown+TBN," because when you establish that TBN breaks even on its cost, there is no reason to NOT pair it with your defensives. DRK does not need several abilities because TBN can be abused and reused so often for its 15 second cooldown! It's even better than Sheltron for taking fluff damage. This is absurdly strong, especially when you consider DRK has access to that much mitigation outside of grit. WAR has to at least swap stances and lose DPS to gain access to IB.

[Nedkel]

How are dark knights self-healing themselves? Are we talking about the undesirable grit locked soul eater that warrior has access to in both stances? Are we talking about Sole Survivor that can only be used on adds once every 2 minutes if the raid just happens to include them (thankfully more did include adds this tier)? Or are we just talking about plain old abyssal drain which does little inside a raid?

Warrior's might give up a chunk of dps when trying to do something similar, but hey, if you are healing yourself its usually a "do or wipe" situation, and in that context warrior does it better and more effectively than anything dark knight can do. Same can be said for paladin, if the chips are down, spam clemency and pray will get your further than grit and soul eater.

You cant use equilibrium in deliverance, you are left with the thrill of battle and storm paths combo and shake it off, with 90 and 120 cd and a GCD little heal, when DRK has still TBN. :P

Comparing DRK in grit stance to warrior in defiance, DRK does more dps, where war has more mitigation, and the similar healing power as DRK it may be a little higher but not by too much, soul eater still is the thing.

[Chrono_Rising]

You cant use equilibrium in deliverance, you are left with the thrill of battle and storm paths combo and shake it off, with 90 and 120 cd and a GCD little heal, when DRK has still TBN. :P

TBN is not healing, it is mitigation. It shields your for 20% of your HP but unless we want to really muddy the waters with whether or not all mitigation is a form of self healing then I don't think this is a road we want to go down. Warrior might not have access to some of these things out of its tank stance, but it can switch into its tank stance for access to something like equilibrium for nearly free every 90 seconds. Of course Inner beast is still a dps loss so spending gauge on that might not be the best idea unless you need it.

Comparing DRK in grit stance to warrior in defiance, DRK does more dps, where war has more mitigation, and the similar healing power as DRK it may be a little higher but not by too much, soul eater still is the thing.

This is just plain false. Warrior's have numerous moves which ignore their stance penalty, which is exactly the same penalty than dark knight has. If you have proof otherwise please share it because right now this just seems false. Warrior is losing access to Fell Cleaves, but dark knight is losing access to blood weapon, which means less blood and less mana for enhancing attacks. In general tanks are hit with a 25% penalty for being in tank stance.

[Xan_Kriegor]

I also don't know the numbers. Once I heard that all of the three tanks lose something like ~35% of their DPS if they stay the entire fight in Tank Stance. But it doesn't matter to our discussion because there is no need to stay in tank stance the entire fight. We were talking about situations in which a tank may want to go to defensive stance to use some extra mitigation and avoid a wipe. In this scenario the stance dance that WAR has is better than the DRK's which is better than PLD's.

[Chrono_Rising]

I also don't know the numbers. Once I heard that all of the three tanks lose something like ~35% of their DPS if they stay the entire fight in Tank Stance. But it doesn't matter to our discussion because there is no need to stay in tank stance the entire fight. We were talking about situations in which a tank may want to go to defensive stance to use some extra mitigation and avoid a wipe. In this scenario the stance dance that WAR has is better than the DRK's which is better than PLD's.

I think 25% is more accurate. And I agree. However, if they wanted to fix something on warrior I would want to see deliverance restore their full HP on activation, and apply healing up to all healing not just casts, and also allow for inner beast to be used out of tank stance.

I think TBN suffers because by comparison sheltron is amazing for both increasing dps and also mitigating a ton of damage if you are getting hit for more than something like 80% of your max HP. In general I think this is a design issue that blocking is so powerful for every type of damage, while the type specific mitigation are mitigating less and only some attacks.

[RopeDrink]

Want to play meta? Pick the flavour.
Want to play, fullstop? Pick what appeals to you.

Unless you're partaking in progression right out of a content gate, one shouldn't over-think it too much, especially when MMORPGs are all about periodic changes and tweaks that shake things up once in a while. As it stands, PLD is still the mitigation king, Warrior is still the deeps-king, and Dark is still the third-wheel king - which isn't saying it can't do its job well, only that the other two just happen to be slightly better in X or Y way.

[shao32]

i preffer dont point to anyone but please stop puting down WAR kit like "have tons of weakness you complaing to much".

if we analyze every tank defensive kit we have:

PLD:
shield oath: reduce 20% damage recive and 15% damage penalty, 600mp cost gdc, cost so much dps over all, there is no way to avoid this except turning off
rampart: universal 20% reduction 20 sec,90 sec recast
sentinel: 40% mitigation 10 sec, 180 seconds recast.
bulwark: 60% block rate 15sec, 180 sec basicly fluff damage.
sheltron: insta block next attack 10 seconds, 50 gauge cost.
hallowed ground: inmune 10 seconds, 420 recast.
pasive block: have a chance to block any incoming attack by X amount depending of the shield.

PLD utility:
cover: take 80% of damage recive by targeret player 12 sec, 120 sec, pretty situational and hard execution need a lot of pre planing to execute it smoothly.
divine veil: barrier to all except you of 10% of you own hp 30 seconds, 120 recast, helpfull, moderate execution, the barrier only cover 7 members.
clemency: 1200 potency heal, you recover 50% of heal dealt if you use it on someone else, 1440 mp, usefull, cost dps at the end.
intervetion: reduce target damage recive by 10%, 50% if you use rampath or sentinel,6 sec, cost 50 gauge, same as cover, can be usefull on help you tank for TB, hard execution on someone else.
passage of arms: 100% block rate, reduce 15% to every one behind you in the cone, 18 seconds, 120 recast, you cant do any action or the effect is interrupted, pretty situational, is a dps waste outside of untargeted aoes.

resume: PLD have 5 active mitigation tools with long recast all of then cover magic and phisical, and all they utility is pretty situational and need a lot of pre planing to being used properly, 2 of then are directly a dps lost, 3 if you count activate yourself divine veil, and intervetion is the only utility you can use easily on every fight on you MT for TB or other for help.

DRK:

grit: reduce damage recive by 20%, 20% damage penalty, cost 1800 mp + gcd, extremly expensive skill and same as shield, cost tons of dps overall and no way to avoid it excep you turn it off lossing with it self heals and blood price, you cant use blood weapon on grit.
rampart: universal 20% reduction 20 sec,90 sec recast
shadow wall: 30% mitigation 10 seconds, 180 sec recast
dark mind: 15% magic mitigation, 30% magic mitigation if you use dark art with is a 140 potency loss to use the maximun mitigation, resume a complety waste, 10 sec, 60 sec recast.
The Blackest Night: 20% you own HP shield on yourself, 10% of you hp on others, cost 2400 mp, 15 sec recast, if breaks you get 50 blood, out grit break the shield translate most of the time in a dps loss by just a few point of potency and sometimes a microscopic gain, i say is dps neutral to dont get in disscusions about this, on grit is a dps gain always but you dealt with grit penaltys on the other hand.
living dead: grant a buff of 10 seconds, if you hp is reduce to 0 you get walking dead 10 seconds, you cant die on walking dead but if you arent heal by the same amout of you maximun hp before the effect ends you die, example, if you have 50k of hp when walking dead apears you need to be heal 50k in total to get the debuff remove.

DRK utility:

The Blackest Night: 10% of you own hp as a shield on other cost 2400, if its breaks you get 50 blood


resume: TBN (the blackest night) is the only drk utility, is dps neutral in optimal play and have chances of being a huge dps loose if the shield dosent breaks, the magic mitigation (dark mind) is a huge dps loose to use it on maximun effect so DRK mitigation is reduce to rampart and shadow wall combined with TBN-dark mind or both at the same time on most fights meaning they phisical mitigation is pretty lower and no effective fluff mitigation tools.

WAR:

defiance: increse you hp by 25% with 20% damage pentalty,20% healing bonus from healing magic, no resource cost + ogdc, unlock 1200 heal potency on equilibrium and unchained can be used to remove damage penalty 20 sec every 90 sec.
rampart: universal 20% reduction 20 sec,90 sec recast
inner beast: 350 potency attack, ignores defiance penalty, absorbs a portion of damage as hp and reduce 20% damage 6 sec.
vengeance: mitigates 30% damage recive and dealt 55 potency counterattacks every time you being hit during 15 sec, 120 seconds recast.
thrill of Battle: Increases maximum HP by 20% and restores the amount increased 20 sec 120 recast.
raw intuition: 100% parry 20 seconds, 90 seconds recast
equilibrium (defiance): restores 1200 hp every 60 seconds, recover 200tp on deliverance.
holmgang: you hp cannot be reduce less that 1hp, pulls the target to you and you are bind to the ground during 6 sec every 180 seconds, requre a objective.

WAR utility:
shake it off: barrier of 8% of maximun hp to the entire team including yourself 15 sec every 90 sec, remove Thrill of Battle, Inner Beast, Vengeance, and Raw Intuition to buff the barier by 4% for each effect removed.

resume: as some try to make it look worse that it is defiance is mathematically the same as grit and shield in terms of mitigation, request a small heal bcs you dont recover the hp you increse but ignoring that defiance its the same efective hp as DRK on grit or PLD on shield.
defiance is the best tank stance of the game as they can swift with deliverance by no resource cost and both being ofcg and the damage penalty can be ignored by unchained, hp increse means buffing Upheaval potency meaning the 5% dps lost by not being on deliverance being minimun, of course we are talking about optimal play where you only get in to defiance on unchained windows, so you can enjoy you fell cleaves.

defensive toolkit in general have pretty short recast, on my own opinion have excesive lower colddowns, vengeance mitigates much as shadow wall and offeers a counter attack on it with longer duraction and only 120 seconds, just 30 seconds more that rampart, and holmgang have 180 seconds, so in terms of general mitigation holmgang is like a shadow wall/ sentinel that cant kill you during 6 s.
so if we translate this to a real combat DRK and PLD cicle rampart and shadow wall/sentinel plus other skills for every TB while warriors can cicle rampart/vengeance with thrill of battle or raw intuition or just rampart with vengeance and leave the next TB in case rampart is not up again to homgang and equilibrium resulting they can ignore inner beast complety and in some degree raw intuition to being exclusive fluff mitigation on phisical autoattacks, this result on making WAR the best defensive job right now staking many cds and abuse freely of holmgang, this in other hand limited WAR on some raid strats where 1 tank skip a shared/switch mechanic if the mechanic itself is far from a targeteable objective, but there is no solo tank metas right now so its not even a problem.

shake it off at contrary to PLD/DRK utility is a straight buff, shor recast make it being up for almost every raid aoe without no preplaning request on it and can be buffed with the defensive tools WAR is not using that moment to surpass divine veil easily.

general resume:

in general PLD and WAR are pretty ok while WAR enjoy most freedom to do things that the other 2 need to squeeze and work harder to do the same, DRK is simple and while TBN is strong by itself is not as strong as many try prove, its just in the place is have to be and they own risk make pretty hard to use it outside TB/raid aoes.
in utility WAR is pretty universal and more helpfull in general with PLD only shines in specific situations but have the number of tools to have at least 1 or 3 of then helpfull for every fight, DRK on other hand utility is almost non exists without being punished somehow, is helpfull to suport you MT in the case you are OT on every TB, but as i mentioned before tend to ends as a dps loss, and PLD/WAR have no issues to survive except they get a vulneravility stack or something, on other party members is pretty hard to use it for any emergency, more that cover if you ask me with the tight MP control we have to manage and targeting the person at time.

if we go to the dps department, WAR have a clear lead right now whit a PLD on second place, DRK is the lowest in every situation mostly by desing flaws on real combat and nonsense balance choices, while WAR probably its going to be nerf a bit in this field to get pre rework levels of dps where was perfect, DRK on the other hand need to surpass WAR in dps if we have in mind the utility both jobs have but that another discusion for another day.

sorry for the wall

[Nedkel]

TBN is not healing, it is mitigation. It shields your for 20% of your HP but unless we want to really muddy the waters with whether or not all mitigation is a form of self healing then I don't think this is a road we want to go down. Warrior might not have access to some of these things out of its tank stance, but it can switch into its tank stance for access to something like equilibrium for nearly free every 90 seconds. Of course Inner beast is still a dps loss so spending gauge on that might not be the best idea unless you need it.



This is just plain false. Warrior's have numerous moves which ignore their stance penalty, which is exactly the same penalty than dark knight has. If you have proof otherwise please share it because right now this just seems false. Warrior is losing access to Fell Cleaves, but dark knight is losing access to blood weapon, which means less blood and less mana for enhancing attacks. In general tanks are hit with a 25% penalty for being in tank stance.

Unchained is a 4.4% dps boost (taking cd into consideration), berserk is 10%, storm eye is 10%, inner release on defiance is a waste imho.

It is even with DRK, but the DRK combo is way stronger than the Warrior, its 840 potency for DRK + 475 bloodspiller, warriors one is only 640 and +350 inner beast.
Not to mention DRK plunge or slated earth, i dont know how you see DRK worse in DPS in tank stance, its not even comparable.

Warrior could change the stance for equilibrum, but the stance themselves are 10 sec cd and it just hurts your DPS to switch between them.